The cornerstone of emotional intelligence and soft skills is responsibility. Everybody has met the manager who is always looking for someone to blame, who micromanages or who condescends. These folks lack the most foundational tool at your disposal—taking responsibility, says Christopher Avery, leadership consultant and author of Teamwork Is an Individual Skill. Responsibility is not simply paying your bills on time or managing a staff of 10. It is, in Avery’s terms, the internal process of taking ownership to the extent you can for the situations in your life and creating the best from that.